User reviews

"High Sierra" was the film that changed the course of Bogart's career and lifted him up to stardom…

As Earle, Bogart was expanding on the criminal characterization he had already mastered in a dozen earlier films, giving it greater depth by adding contrasting elements of warmth and compassion to compensate the dominant violence…

Bogart helps a clubfooted girl, Velma (Joan Leslie), who repays him only with disregard and indifference…

Bogart's interpretation already showed signs of the special qualities that were to become an important part of his mystique in a few more films…

Here, for the first time, was the human being outside society's laws who had his own private sense of loyalty, integrity, and honor… Bogart's performance turns "High Sierra" into an elegiac film…

As a film, "High Sierra" has other notable qualities, particularly Ida Lupino's strong and moving performance as Marie, the girl who brings out Roy Earle's more human emotions…

The movie was remade as a Western, "Colorado Territory," with Joel McCrea and Virginia Mayo, and as a crime film in "I Died a Thousand Times," with Jack Palance and Shelley Winters in the Bogart and Lupino roles… Neither came up to the stylish treatment given "High Sierra" by director Raoul Walsh from an exceptionally good script by John Huston and W. R. Burnett

'High Sierra' belongs in genres that have been held in long-term high regard by me. It also has Humphrey Bogart in the film that properly propelled him to stardom and fully established his comfort zone. Raoul Walsh was a gifted director, evident in two of his best known films 1924's 'The Thief of Baghdad' and 1949's 'White Heat' (two of the best films in their respective genres) amongst others. John Huston was another fine director and was equally good at script-writing as seen here. Talented cast in general too.

All done justice here in 'High Sierra' and far from wasted. To me and many others, this is a very good and often excellent film and up there with Bogart's best films and performances. It has pretty much everything that makes me love film noir or similar films and the genres it falls into, and hardly anything disappointed. Regardless of any small imperfections that were not enough to ruin the film drastically. If asked whether the film is recommended to me, my easy answer would be yes.

Sure, the story is daft in places. Did feel too that although sweet and that it wasn't too sentimental, the Joan Leslie subplot was a little strange at times and didn't always fit.

On the other hand, Bogart is excellent and brings both hard-boiled intensity and in the right places an endearing softer side. It is very easy to see why he became such a big star after this. Ida Lupino also fares strongly, tough but also very easy to like. Although her subplot left me mixed, Leslie does a very good job in a role not easy to play and raises some smiles. As does the adorable dog, who brings so much charm to all the scenes it steals without any effort. Walsh gives some of his best directing here, especially in the suspenseful and cleverly staged final third.

Visually, 'High Sierra' is very well made, with very stylish and suitably eerie photography that helps open up and give atmosphere to the settings. The music is suitably ominous in the right places and Huston's script is taut and pacey with a lot of smart wit and edge.

The story as an overall whole is gripping and with the right amount of suspense. The final third especially leaves one glued to the edge of the seat. The characters carry the film really well and don't feel stock or like ciphers.

In conclusion, very, very good. 8/10

For reasons unexplained you have been pardoned, after eight years behind bars you're still quite hardened, but there's a soft side you present, there's a kindness with intent, but there are times, when anger rages, and you're darkened. Old habits can be difficult to break, and so an offer of a caper you do take, driving down to California, meeting up with guys quite amateur, plus a lass who's called Marie, who's hard to shake. Naturally things don't go quite as you had hoped, as a gun is drawn and you feel your provoked, triggers pulled and bullets fly, public enemy, the bad guy, as you head into mountains, with quite steep slopes.

*High Sierra* is almost excruciatingly important in the development of cinema, laying to bed the "gangster picture" of the 1930's while simultaneously giving birth to American film noir. Oh, and it made Humphrey Bogart a major star while it was at it. Therefore, I'm not entirely sure that your film collection, if you have one, can survive without it.

Based on a pulpy novel, it chronicles the story of Roy Earle, sprung from a life sentence in prison so that he can knock over a casino along the California-Nevada border. It's easy to miss, but notice the first minute of this picture closely: it's of course the Governor -- bought off by a mobster -- who gets Roy released from his life sentence, indicating that the corruption has finely infested the top of the social order. This is the usual tough-minded, whistle-blowing gangster-picture stuff that Warner Bros. specialized in. But there's also something else at work here, perhaps something new: one gets the sense that what happens to Roy in this movie has been engineered from On High, in advance . . . in other words, he's in the Jaws of Fate. And thus we're in the unforgiving world of Film Noir.

More than the opening scene, it's Bogart who almost single-handedly invents film noir with his groundbreaking work in *High Sierra*. Not cocky like Cagney and Muni, not psychopathic like the early Edward G. Robinson, not as smooth as Raft, Bogart is a ruthless professional with a wide stripe of sentimentality. His Roy never shirks from killing, but he doesn't get off on it. He's more a rebel than a gangster, a poetic soul denied respectability, a man longing for the innocence of his youth. Unfortunately, he thinks he finds in the personage of a transplanted Okie farm-girl (Joan Leslie) a reasonable facsimile of that innocence. Competing for his affections is Ida Lupino, a sour "dime-a-dance girl" who's been up, down, and around the block a time or three. She's the baggage that comes with the two new-generation hoods whom Bogart is assigned to babysit for the casino heist. Not until later in the picture does Bogart recognize Lupino's better suitability to his own temperament and experience. (They share in common, among other things, suicidal impulses, a desire to escape a corrupted world.)

Roy Earle was a new type of character -- the truly romantic criminal. Bogart would play variations on Earle throughout his career, though he rarely exceeded his triumph here. And while I've given the actor much of the credit, some more credit must be extended to the screenwriter, John Huston. *High Sierra* was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Oh, and did I mention that the movie -- aside from its importance in American film history, yadda yadda -- is quite simply a good time? Witty dialogue, great on-location direction by Raoul Walsh, a cute dog, and a climactic car chase that wouldn't be equaled until 1968's *Bullitt*, are just some of this movie's other virtues.

Bogey is picked to lead a jewel heist at a resort. When he meets the rag tag team he has to work with, he senses trouble brewing. This is the film that brought attention to Bogart's leading man skills and Huston's peerless writing. Many remember the classic ending with Bogart hiding out in the mountains for one final stand against the law (and fate). Ida Lupino is one of my favorite actresses from the 40's and does fine work here (and looks stunning). Many fine moments with Bogey...including a memorable speech within his cabin hideout. This is one of the best portraits of a desperate outlaw in film history. A blueprint for all the antihero films that would follow over the years...great fun! Seek it out and enjoy!

Humphrey Bogart's screen name in High Sierra is Roy 'Mad Dog' Earle. But it's clear from the outset that if Bogart is anything he's not crazy. Bogart may have been a wild guy in his youth, but he's now a middle-aged man who is fully aware that he can't do anything else, but continue in a life crime. He's got the resume and the reputation for that and nothing else. What else can he do, but accept an offer to crew chief a heist at an expensive resort hotel in Nevada.

He can't pick the men he'd like, they're probably all dead or in the joint. He gets some young punks assigned to him by Barton MacLane who is acting as a middleman for boss Donald MacBride out on the west coast. Bogey gets Alan Curtis, Arthur Kennedy, and an informant at the hotel, Cornel Wilde. Curtis and Kennedy are getting their hormones in overdrive over Ida Lupino.

On the way west Bogey meets up with a near do well family headed by Henry Travers and he starts crushing out on teenager Joan Leslie. They represent to him a simpler time before he took up crime as a living.

The first half of the film sets up the characters, the second part is the robbery and it's aftermath. In that second half High Sierra moves at a really good clip. Not too many went out for popcorn when it was shown in theaters back in the day.

High Sierra was one of three films that George Raft turned down and were given to Humphrey Bogart that established him as a leading man. The other two were The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. Raft must have had some agent back in the day.

Of course Bogart is playing a gangster, but this one is a three dimensional character and a fine piece of work. It represented a big advance from some of the villains he played at Warner Brothers during the late Thirties.

High Sierra was directed by Raoul Walsh and another Hollywood icon director, John Huston, co-wrote the screenplay. There's a lot of similarity with this and Huston's later classic, The Asphalt Jungle.

High Sierra was remade twice, as a western with the miscast Joel McCrea in Bogart's role and in the Fifties as I Died a Thousand Times with Jack Palance. I daresay it could be made again quite easily for this generation, it's story is timeless.

W.R. Burnett's novel High Sierra is maybe his best book; it's certainly a classic of its type, and very readable and moving even today. The movie version of the book isn't quite as good, but it does something few adaptations do: it captures the spirit of the original.

The story is about a John Dillinger-like criminal, Roy Earle, just released from prison, and his planning of his last 'heist', as he moves from the Midwest to California. It's as much a character study as anything else, and here the book is better, as Burnett seems to get inside the heart and soul of Roy Earle in ways that screenwriter John Huston and director Raoul Walsh can't. This isn't their fault. Burnett gives us Earle's inner life in interior monologues, and movies simply can't do this. Nevertheless, we get a feeling for Earle, a lonely, extremely sentimental and romantic man, essentially a frontier type, or with more brains an artist, who cannot fit into modern life. The reason is simple: he doesn't understand it. He is driven by two things, strong emotions and extreme professionalism. The problem is that his profession is crime. Between these two extremes he is unsocialized, or rather doesn't understand the subtlety of contemporary life. To put it in current parlance, he's not hip, which is to say he has no detachment, no capacity for pulling back and reflecting, unless, that is, he is in love, and even then he gets it wrong by misunderstanding an attractive, crippled girl's reliance on him for love, and taking her country girl disposition for naivite (i.e. like him), which isn't true. This tragic aspect of Roy Earle is beautifully and perceptively described by Burnett, and while it's present in the film, it makes Roy seem obtuse, while the truth is his emotions run deep, and are sincere. He wants to give up crime and marry a small-town girl so that he can go back and get it right again. In the lead role Humphrey Bogart gives a major performance. Superficially he's wrong for Roy Earle: too urban, flip, smart and clever. But he trades in his natural big city persona for a moony, brooding romanticism, and it works. He doesn't seem the least bit sophisticated, and in his quieter moments he comes off like a man who can kill the way other men write checks

He has a true girl-friend in Ida Lupino, but he doesn't realize that she's more his type: life-weary, straightforward, deep and caring. He prefers the one he can't get, and this gets him in trouble, as his commitment to her puts him in a dreamy, dissociative state that is dangerous for a man in his line of work. The story builds on little things, and the bucolic mountain and small-town setting of the film is terra incognita for Roy, and we sense this even if he doesn't. He is, for all his professionalism, way out of his league, and is looking back to his idealized, romanticized early life, and longing for an ideal girl that he can 'fix', rather than doing the right thing and going off with Lupino and stating anew, which is his only chance for happiness.

Roy is a man who lives in two parallel worlds, the real, vicious one he must cope with, and the fantasy one he longs for and sees in the crippled girl he so tenderly loves. There is no in-between for him, as his head is in the clouds much of the time. It is therefore fitting that the movie ends up literally in the clouds, or so it seems, atop a mountain, as Roy shoots it out with reality one last time.

Solid gangster yarn starring Humphrey Bogart. Between this and The Maltese Falcon, Bogie would emerge from 1941 Hollywood's biggest star. He plays a gangster just getting out of prison. Like all gangsters, he immediately hooks back up with his criminal friends and starts planning a heist. Among the crooks he partners up with is Ida Lupino. Bogie's fine, but High Sierra belongs to Lupino. She's such a pathetic but lovable character, desperate to hook herself to someone who's not going to smack her or leave her flat. Bogart's character is something of a famed criminal, so she immediately tries to get with him. He finds her too low. Hoping to get out of the business after the archetypical last big score, Bogart is drawn to another young woman (Joan Leslie), who has a club foot. That whole dream is a little corny, but at least the screenplay (adapted by John Huston and the original novel's author, W.R. Burnett) knows that. Still, the scenes with Leslie and her family really drag. Also, the cute dog is overused. Arthur Kennedy also co-stars as one of Bogart's gang.

It is a great Bogart vehicle. But what makes Bogart look good is the fine screenplay. Not having read Burnett's book is a disadvantage for me to judge the contribution of Burnett and John Huston to the screenplay. Being familiar with Huston's screenplays, I tend to think it was Huston who probably made all the difference to the screenplay.

Huston loved to play on the good side of men that became sometimes comical and sometimes their folly. In "High Sierra" the goodness in the "mad dog" is played up: the bad guy looks good. Huston did that with aplomb in "The Man who would be King". At the same time he reverses the role of the poor girl with the clubfoot into an ungrateful woman. Only animals remain the same...

The lines are made for Bogart's style. The direction of Walsh is not bad but not striking either. I will remember the film for the strong screenplay alone, without which the film would have floundered.

Aw, the film that launched stardom for Humphrey Bogart and changed him from the perpetual villain to the "good guy."

The movie doesn't feature a lot of action but it keeps your interest. You have two women in here: the hard-boiled Ida Lupino and the soft-and-sweet Joan Leslie. Both are entertaining to watch and both demonstrate a few surprises in the personalities of the characters they are playing. Bogart does the same: goes back and forth between tough guy and softy.

Another key member of this unusual crime story/film noir is "Pard:" a little dog! Human supporting roles are supplied by some familiar and solid actors such as Arthur Kennedy, Alan Curtis, Henry Hull, Henry Travers, Barton MacLane and Cornel Wilde. Most of the people in here, including "Pard," are that endearing but there are so many different angles to this story, it's always interesting to see.

A sublime film. Probably one of the most melancholic pictures ever made in the classic period. It is one of the earliest and strongest portraits of the tragic hero, so recurrent in Walsh's filmography. Bogart's character, a mournful, resigned old-timer who witnesses the gradual downfall of the world as he knows it, dresses in black all through the film, like the mute and only assistant to his own funeral. As other Walsh anti-heroes –notably White Heat's Cody- he must reach the heights before him dies. One wonders what would have been of the Bogart, Cagney, Flynn or Raft persona without their significant roles in the Raoul Walsh films. It's remake, Colorado Territory, is even better.

Roy Earle (Bogart) gets a pardon only to go back to the world of crimes.But tough guy finds two sides of himself when he meets the crippled Velma (Joan Leslie) and Pa (Henry Travers).He falls for the gal and wants to help her walk properly.But there's Marie (Ida Lupino) who falls for him.Raoul Walsh is the director, John Huston and W.R.Burnett the writers of High Sierra (1941).This is a movie that made Humphrey Bogart a star.He does a highly memorable role work as Roy Earle.Ida Lupino shows her talent as Marie.Joan Leslie is another wonderful female in this picture.Henry Travers is fantastic as always.Willie Best and Pard the dog bring some comedy there.There are many scenes to remember in this classic.The final scene leaves you speechless.Movies used to be something else in the olden days.

Humphrey Bogart is superb as Mad Dog, an ex-con plotting a Los Angeles jewel heist, becoming involved with two very different women, Ida Lupino and Joan Leslie. Intricately plotted adaptation of W.R. Burnett's book (by Burnett and John Huston!) given stylish, exciting direction by Raoul Walsh. Bogie's gangster persona is still surprisingly fresh at this point, and his tightly-controlled acting here ranks with many of his later, more popular performances; Lupino is also first-rate. A fantastic, influential film in gloriously rich black-and-white. Remade twice: in 1949 as "Colorado Territory" and in 1955 as "I Died a Thousand Times". *** from ****

On the surface "High Sierra" appears to be an ordinary film but it is really amazing how over the years it has established its reputation as a classic film.All artistic credit for this film must be shared by two giants of American cinema Raoul Walsh and John Huston.Famous Hollywood actor Humphrey Bogart is also to be remembered for this film which enabled him to cast his dynamic spell on viewers.The best thing about Bogart's role is that he appears more like a troubled soul although he convincingly plays a tough criminal.There are no so many actors in Hollywood like him who can play roles depicting troubled souls with a criminal bent of mind.Some serious viewers might complain that it is rather bizarre that acting talent of Ida Lupino has not been properly used.She was made to content herself by mouthing some very ordinary lines.It is funny that High Sierra has been touted as a heist film but it is not exactly what one should call a 100% heist film.It has its fair share of dramatic elements too which are interlinked including the final car chase sequence which was all for the best.

After being released from prison , notorious criminal alias Mag Dog ( Humphrey Bogart as bad guy) is contracted by his old boss (Daniel MacBride) to help a group of inexperienced thieves ( Arthur Kennedy , Alan Curtis , Cornel Wilde) scheme and carry out the robbery of a California resort. Meanwhile Roy Earle or Mag Dog Killer establishes an enjoyable relationship with a family (whose grandfather is a likable Henry Travers offering an interest contrast) and pays for the operation who corrects beautiful girl's (a gorgeous Joan Leslie ) crippled foot , but he then finds his love interest is misplaced . Later on , Roy on the lam and runs through from police who relentlessly pursues him .Towering Thrills with this Year's Academy Award Star! .Humphrey Bogart in one of his most powerful portrayals !. The Blazing Mountain Manhunt for Killer 'Mad-Dog' Earle!.The last public enemy's last stand !. The peak of bullet-straked underworld thrillers !He killed... and there on the crest of Sierra's highest crag... he must be killed! The blazing mountain manhunt for Killer Mad-Dog Earle!.A new peak for screen excitement!

This Warner Bros production is a classic Noir cinema packed with drama , noisy action , thrills , a love story , being fast moving and pretty entertaining . Humprey as ¨Mag Dog killer¨, at his best , he plays as an outlaw with a soft heart of gold . Impressive and moving ending on the mountaintop including the appearance a well-trained dog . Ida Lupino is very fine as the moll , as well as Joan Leslie as innocent but ungrateful person . Ample support cast formed by known co-stars who subsequently to be continued long careers as Cornel Wilde , Alan Curtis and Arthur Kennedy . Thrilling screenplay by W. R. Burnett and John Huston based on Burnett' s novel . Rousing musical score by Adolph Deutsch and atmospheric cinematography by Tony Gaudio . Also shown in horrible computer-colored version . Well produced by Hal B Wallis and Mark Hellinger , the latter a prestigious producer of classic noir films as ¨Naked city¨, ¨Brute Force ¨, The killers¨ , ¨The roaring twenties¨ and ¨They drive by night¨. This terrific caper gangster is stunningly directed by Raoul Walsh . Rating : Above average , the interesting drama and action make it of the finest of Mark Hellinger genre entries.

The W. R. Burnett's novel is remade various times as in Western format titled ¨Colorado territory¨ (1949) also by Raoul Walsh with Joel McCrea , Virginia Mayo and repeating Henry Hull and ¨I died thousand times¨(1955) by Stuart Heisler with Jack Palance , Shelley Winters , Lee Marvin and Lori Nelson .

It's hard to imaging these days but there was a time when Humphrey Bogart was nothing more than an actor who always played secondary character roles, in the shadow of the movie its main character. For instance behind George Raft, who was a much bigger star at the time but also female leads such as Ida Lupino, who also stars in this movie. But Raft then turned down roles for movies such as this movie "High Sierra", "The Maltese Falcon" and "Casablanca". All roles that were then past on to Bogart instead. Roles that truly launched his career to an amazing height, surpassing George Raft by far. Still, he didn't received top-billing for this movie yet. That honor once more went to Ida Lupino, even though Bogart's role is much bigger and is unquestionably the main character of the movie. Ida Lupino was just a better selling name, which says something of the time period and point of Bogart's career this movie got made in. This movie really marked his big breakthrough and after this he would mostly only land roles as a top-billing actor, in movies such as "Casablanca", "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and "The Maltese Falcon".

But what makes this movie so great is not just Bogart but also really the movie its story and directing from Raoul Walsh.

The story is written by John Huston, who is better known as an actor and director than a writer, even though he wrote the screenplay for many fine movies. This is also truly one of those movies. It's really no formulaic story and truly highly original and therefor also compelling. The main character is in love with a girl who isn't in love with him, while there is another girl who is in love with him, though his heart is still with this other girl. Sounds melodramatic and perhaps confusing but it's something really refreshing to see and makes the story and character developments progress in a way you wouldn't always expect it to. On top of that there is a main plot-line involving a robbery but really the movie is mostly about its central character. This movie just has basically everything in its story that is needed to make a great movie with. Add to that the performance from Bogart and the fantastic directing from Raoul Walsh and you have a great, tense, entertaining, fast going and original classic movie.

It's not really fully a film-noir, since that genre was still pretty much non-existent at that time and was still a work in progress. This movie does show some noir tendencies, mostly with its lead character, female roles and the main plot line involving a robbery but it's not quite noir enough in its style to fully consider this a pure film-noir. It's the other Humphrey Bogart from later in the same year, "The Maltese Falcon" that is widely considered to be one of the first real film-noir's. Ironicly it was a movie directed by John Huston, the man who wrote the screenplay for this movie.

The movie also features some surprising good action sequences. You have to remember that this is an 1941, when the action genre was still something non-existent but director Raoul Walsh knows to create a couple of good looking action sequences with camera-positions and editing you would expect from an action movie that is being made this present day. Especially the car chases within this movie are memorable.

Interestingly enough director Raoul Walsh himself remade this movie 8 years later into a western movie "Colorado Territory", that might not be as good as this original but it's just as good, intriguing and entertaining on its own and remains an under-appreciated movie.

A real perfect classic and still an unique movie to watch.

10/10

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Sickly Big Mac has planned a big score and paid top dollars to get a governor's pardon for his imprisoned compatriot Roy Earle (Humphrey Bogart). Roy is released and drives to a Californian mountain fishing camp to join his crew, Red and Babe. Babe had picked up dance hall girl Marie (Ida Lupino). Louis Mendoza is the inside man at the hotel. Roy tries to kick out Marie but she convinces him to let her stay. Roy befriends crippled Velma (Joan Leslie) and her grandfather (Henry Travers) who are traveling to LA from their foreclosed farm.

This tries a little too hard to humanize Roy with the hard-scrabbled family. The character has grown out of his Mad Dog nickname. The action and the story could be harsher and grittier. Despite some softer round corners, Bogie is Bogie and he makes this good. He is magnetic and this solid crime drama becomes better.

Humphrey Bogart (Roy Earle) is sprung from prison so that he can lead a gang in a robbery at a hotel for the wealthy. He meets his gang - Ida Lupino (Marie), Arthur Kennedy (Red), Alan Curtis (Babe) along with the inside man who works on reception at the hotel, Cornel Wilde (Mendoza) and heist mastermind Donald MacBride (Big Mac). However, on his way to meet up with his new crime unit, he befriends a family headed by Henry Travers (Pa) and falls in love with the daughter Joan Leslie (Velma). He retains his connection with this family throughout the film as he plans his robbery and escape. Does he pull it off......?

The film has a nice setting and the ending stands out as we watch Bogart battle things out on the Sierra mountain range. There is a standout shot of a marksman looking down from a vantage point on the Sierra Nevada - nice camera-work. There is also a car chase up the mountain which is well executed and the stuff of nightmares as cars tear round bends not knowing what is around the corner. The cast are OK with Bogart as the standout character.

Unfortunately, the film does not deliver on what should be an interesting story. It spends far too much time tracking Bogart's friendship with Travers and his family and, in particular, his perverted love for someone who is WAY too young for him - Joan Leslie - the daughter with a club foot. He pays for her defect to be cured and thinks he can swoop her away with him. What a perv. Lupino is a far more suitable love interest for him but I can understand him not wanting anything to do with her because of her affection for a bloody dog called Pard. The writers have given Bogart a sensitive side by thinking "Hmmmm. He needs to be sensitive. Lets get him to love a cripple and have a soft side for dogs. Yeah. That's a good idea." Well, it's not. He should have killed the dog in the first few scenes. And this is where the story gets stupid - he takes the dog with him to a robbery on Lupino's request. Aaaah! How sensitive of him! There is a lot more of that irritating dog in the film - it's really naff.

Given the cast, the film is weaker than the sum of it's parts and it is just not gripping enough. Oh yeah....and Willie Best does his annoying black man thing in the guise of Algernon.